Ensley Alabama, moving in

Having been a resident of Birmingham suburbs for 24 years, I’ve lived in Hoover, Helena, Vestavia, and most recently Ensley.  One of these places is not like the others. 

Shortly before the economic collapse of 2008, the company where I work wisely cut the workforce by 100+ people (out of 400+) and cut the remaining employee’s pay by 10 percent.  Luckily I was not one of the 100+, but I was living in an apartment in Hoover at the time and found that I could no longer afford the high rent.  It was time for a change.

I decided to do a field study in the basics of civilization as we know it.  I found a three story brick house in Ensley for sale that came with three lots and the price was only 9 thousand dollars.  It has hard-wood floors and is built into a hill so every floor has a ground level door.  I couldn’t imagine why it had been on the market for 3 years; except that it was a foreclosure and the bank originally wanted eighty-five thousand and lowered the asking price by a few thousand every few months.  By the time I went through the process of getting moved in, it had sat vacant for several years; the local kids broke about a third of the windows.

“D” and “P” (teenagers) used to walk a path nearby on the way to the school bus and had an ongoing one rock per day challenge – i.e. one would throw a rock at my house and the other would throw a rock and my neighbor’s.  The winner would be the one that broke a window.  Luckily the younger brother threw at my house and wasn’t as strong as the older one; my neighbor’s house had most of the windows completely broken.  (It’s still vacant).

The copper thieves had cut out all the plumbing they could access, and there was evidence that someone had been sleeping in the basement.  Scavenging the neighborhood for vacant houses containing copper seems to be a relatively popular cult here.  I once threw away an old couch and within an hour someone was out there with a beat up pickup truck and an axe ripping it apart for scrap metal.

The house’s foundation seems to be cracked and the roof leaks badly when it rains hard.  I packed the apartment, bought locks for the door duct-taped a few of the windows and moved in.  Thus I had reached civilization level 1 – shelter.

The first week was brutally cold; my thermometer read 34 degrees inside.  I wore 6 layers of clothing and then slept under 4 blankets on top of that the first few days.

After a few days investigation (in limited daylight after work), I determined that most of the wiring was still intact, although 50+ years old.  I contacted the power company and had them install power meter and turn on the power.  It turns out the drainage plumbing wasn’t valuable enough to steal, so I brought buckets of water from work so I could flush the toilet.   So, civilization level 2 - the ability to stay up past dark, watch DVD movies, and be warm without being uncomfortable (via an electric blanket).

Next post will be “The welcoming party in the hood”; an unplanned event one morning from 12:30 to 2:30 AM.

Over boiled okra and systems theory

    I am the oldest of six children; five boys and one sister (the youngest).  Our home life was simple – we lived in the country and had a very large back yard (30 acres).  It was simple because when any complexity arose, Dad made a decision or rule and enforced it consistently.  What does this have to do with okra?  Let me share a few rules and circumstances:

1) When there is an altercation between siblings, the older one is at fault.

2)   All family members will be present at super and no one will leave until everyone has eaten everything on his or her plate.

3)   We had a very big garden; 20 or more tomato plants, okra, corn, greens, green beans, etc.

4)   We had cows and horses.

5)   Okra can be picked every day most of the summer and it freezes well.  Almost all of our food came from the garden or pasture.

6)   Properly boiling okra requires careful attention to the amount of time it is cooked; not easily done with 4 other dishes and 6 children.

7)   After everyone was done eating, Dad would read the bible for 30 minutes while all listened quietly.  (We went through the whole thing twice over the years if I remember correctly).

8)   Everyone has to eat a portion of every dish; if the portion chosen was too big or too small, Dad would fix it.

What we have here is a functioning system; younger siblings learned to enjoy the privilege of hitting or otherwise abusing older siblings.  Blame was always predictable and if the older retaliated, punishment was painful.  I spent a few years being unhappy with this system; I was the oldest.  I complained and got in trouble for complaining.

From early childhood through the third grade, I was largely angry with the world, lonely, and withdrawn.  I learned to cope by reading books and exploring math.  Most of the books in the house were college level textbooks and an encyclopedia so early on I could actually read, I scanned for repeated words.  Then I learned to look words up in the dictionary.  Around the second grade, magic happened.  My mom showed me some (very) basic algebra – it was like a whole new world opened up to me.  I spent untold hours manipulating formulas; it was a great deal for my mom because she could show me something for 10 minutes and I would spend sometimes days trying to understand it.  The idea that a letter could represent any number was exciting.  The inability to be able to divide by zero was a problem I tried to solve for months.  (Momma told me it was a great unsolved problem in math and maybe I could figure it out.)

At the end of the third grade, we moved to Indiana and I entered fourth grade.  I got the worst teacher in the state.  She was a very big angry forty something woman in the middle of menopause who would fly off into a verbally abusive rage with the slightest student wrongdoing.  I was withdrawn, had no friends, timid, and had no idea about the differences in rules between an Indiana school and my previous Alabama one.  It was an unpleasant experience till the big discovery.

One afternoon at school, somehow I noticed something very significant.  Right before Ms Henke would fly off the deep end, a certain expression happened on her face where her forehead wrinkled, eyes squinted slightly and jaw tightened.  I made a theory.  I walked to the window and looked outside the classroom.  She noticed.  I kept looking out the window.  Boom – the look started forming, so I returned to my desk before she erupted.  Yes!  This was my first big success moment in systems theory.

Suddenly I was empowered to be able to tell what the rules were for the day by watching her face.  Latter I realized that when she’s about to go off on someone, the squinted eyes create a tunnel vision – a 30 second window of time where I could break any rule I wanted to (as long as there was no noise involved); sauce for the goose!

In the days or weeks following, I noticed something very significant at home.  All of my siblings (including me) hated slimy over boiled okra.  Everyone was required to eat two bites.  One afternoon I was taking a nap on the couch after school and one of the younger brothers took his (metal) Tonka truck and whacked me with it.  I was upset, frustrated, and mad; Daddy expected me to take this abuse and ignore it because I was older.  It wasn’t fair.  At supper, over boiled okra was on the table and it was another magical moment for me. Towards the end of the meal, when everyone else was almost done eating, I loaded my plate half full of the slimy stuff.  Then I proceeded to eat it slowly and pretend to enjoy it like a piece of cake.  Everyone at the table suffered; the younger siblings complained and were disciplined for complaining.

Suddenly I came to the realization that as distasteful and gross as it was, this okra was the solution to my problem.  Overnight I was empowered by being able to make everyone at the table suffer!  It was my second big moment in systems theory; the younger brothers were more than happy come to my aid when one of their elders was bothering me.  The words “I’m going to pick some okra so we can have a big bowl tonight.” brought all my brothers and sister to the negotiating table.  It was awesome.

Epilogue

Little did I know as a child and teenager, my father was teaching us about life in the real world.  In most systems of life, there is “THE MAN”.  You can complain about it, and make no progress.  You can run, and make no progress.  OR, you can search for a tool that (perhaps indirectly) makes “THE MAN” work to accomplish what you wanted in the first place.  It usually takes years to figure it out though.

QED

Fundamental types of value

Time saved

·         1) Faster product or service delivery

·         2) Shorter travel time due to business location

·         3) A product or service that saves the customer time

Time spent

·         1) An atmosphere to enjoy with friends while the product is being prepared.

·         2) A Christmas tree farm an hour out of town to foster “family tradition”

·         3) The time spent at the business is the product.

Money saved

·         1) A lower price.

·         2) More of a product for the same price.

·         3) A volume discount

Money spent

·         1) A unique product (prestige)

·         2) A branded feeling (Michelin tires, Coke)

·         3) Limited availability

Free money

·         1) Improvements to processes that increase efficiency or lower costs.

·         2) Information that increases a customer’s income without extra work.

Bloom's Taxonomy

	In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. During the 1990's a new group of cognitive psychologist, lead by Lorin Anderson (a former student of Bloom's), updated the taxonomy reflecting relevance to 21st century work. The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbiage associated with the long familiar Bloom's Taxonomy.
Remembering: can the student recall or remember the information?	Define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, and reproduce state
Understanding: can the student explain ideas or concepts?	Classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate, and paraphrase
Applying: can the student use the information in a new way?	Choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, and write.
Analyzing: can the student distinguish between the different parts?	Appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, and test.
Evaluating: can the student justify a stand or decision?	Appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, and evaluate
Creating: can the student create new product or point of view?	Assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, and write.

The Truth I believe

God is just, omnipotent, all knowing, and definitely in charge of the world today.  He orchestrates the world with perfect justice.  Sometimes we can't understand His actions because we know only part of the past and our own present.  His perfect justice considers all of the past, the present, the deepest thoughts everyone’s heart, the future, and the spiritual.

·         You don’t have any money because you don’t have any money.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Why? Because there's a universal truth that value, discipline, knowledge, time, and money attract more money.  How does a poor person become rich?  By giving value (working), using discipline (spending wisely), getting a better education (continuously learning), waiting for opportunity (time), and being prepared (saving).

Attributes of a Rich person	Attributes of a Poor person
Wears warm clothes in the winter	Has a warm house
Uses fans and open windows in summer	Air conditioning 24x7
Drives a 10 year old Honda civic	Leases a new car
Changes his/her own oil	Gets service at the dealership
Buys food in bulk, cooks, and freezes	Eats take-out 12 times a week
Owns outright and lives in a tent with no indoor plumbing (i.e. whatever it takes).	Rents a nice house and allows grown family members to stay for free.
Gives time and energy at every opportunity	Takes whatever is not locked down
Works 60+ hours a week	Works 22 hours a week, or not at all.
Reads for an hour or more a day	Buys lottery tickets
Listens to motivational CDs, watches instructional DVDs	Has 187 channels on cable and leaves the TV on 24x7.
Understands the joy of hard work	Searches for a free lunch

·         The secret to long term healthy relationships is extremely low expectations.

·         If you want peace in your relationships, love the ones who loves you, not the one you choose.

·         Time tells all things.  After a period of time when two people spend a lot of time together, there are no secrets and the true inner character of each person is known to the other.

·         You don’t know what you don’t know.

The tragedy of wasted potential is present in all of us.  Each person evaluates his/her world through a filter built by the experiences of his/her life.  To change your experience, you have to change your filter by changing what you feed your mind.

People who are very wealthy pay far less than you do (or nothing) for everything they buy or control.  You can’t be wealthy like them because you don’t know what they know.  To learn what they know, you have to spend a lot of time making mistakes and learning the hard way or get them to show you.  They don’t publish books.  You need to look for opportunities to help them (for free) and do this for an extended period of time with no expectation of return.  At an unexpected time, one of them will feel charity and tell you about opportunities you didn’t know existed or send you in directions you didn’t know were available and it will make a 10 fold difference in your income.

·         You have to prove yourself by being successful with small things before you will be successful with big things.

·         God loves orderliness and accurate measure.  He blesses people more when they organize his province and account for it accurately.

·         Borrowed money is poison.  You don’t need it.  It will only slow you down.

·         Every change you make involves a measure of power and a measure of force.

When you use power to accomplish something, the change is complete and will continue when you are no longer present.  Power is liberating.  It gives the ability to do something and move on to something new without looking back.

When you use force to accomplish something, there is an opposing force that seeks to undo the change.  The change will stand only as long as the force is applied.  Force is enslaving.  It drains your energy.

Attributes of Power	Attributes of Force
By God’s mercy and grace	Trying to fix it yourself
Savings	Debt
Discipline	Diet
Effortless	Hard
Small steps	Radical change
Clear goal, plans, and a budget	Out of control spending, no end in sight